scott’s spot

I think I may have seen the timeliest piece of televised fiction I’ve ever seen. I had a little bit of ironing to do for the next day (can’t possibly show up to work looking all wrinkled and disheveled!) and I turned on the TV. Nay was TiVo-ing “Boston Legal”.

SIDENOTE: What is the proper conjugation of the recently minted verb “Tivo”?

Anyway, the main non-William Shatner character, Alan Shore, played by James Spader, is arguing in front of the US Supreme Court, whether a mentally deficient man who was convicted of raping a child in Louisiana should be put to death.

Okay, so, not more than a few days earlier (4/16), I’m listening to NPR’s All Things Considered, and I hear this: listen.

The article (in case you don’t want to listen to the whole thing) is all about a case that’s headed to the Supreme Court to decide whether Louisiana has the right the execute a man convicted of rape of a child.

Whoa. Seriously?

I just heard this piece on NPR and a few nights—just a few—I’m watching it play itself out fictionally on national TV. Without going into the particulars of my own belief in the death penalty (that the practice should be discontinued), and avoiding the political diatribe into which Spader’s soliloquy descended (which I ultimately found distracting), I have to say, this is the single most timely piece of fiction I have ever seen on TV.

Have you seen it? Have you landed on it by accident, or seen the series title as you’re trolling the channels with your Tivo remote and flipped to it just out of curiosity? Have you laughed your ass off at some of the images, like Gail and John, where he proposed by writing “Will you marry me” on the street with that fine, delicate writing instrument, his urine stream? Or at Tammy and Brad, who coordinated their wedding attire with finely chosen camouflage? Have you listened to the comments of host Tom Arnold, whose quips almost work but not always, but who doesn’t appear to care because he looks (and sounds) like he contributed heavily to the string of beer cans that run out behind the wedding <cough> limo.

Well, if you haven’t, or if you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you clearly haven’t seen My Big Redneck Wedding. I kid you not. CMT(Country Music Television) has jumped feet first the reality TV show fray with both great big bare feet. They have scoured the land to find the redneck-iest couples about to get hitched and have presented them to us, the viewing public, for our amusement.

Some highlights:

• The groomsmen (and doubtlessly others) shooting off their shotguns at the end of the night of Brad and Tammy’s wedding.
• The bridal party (Tammy and Brad) riding around on quads.
• Brad taking his groomsmen and other friends and relatives skeet shooting so they could have enough spent shotgun shells to “craft” the centerpieces for the reception tables.
• Gail panicking because she couldn’t find her teeth the morning of the wedding. (A close–I hope close–relative offered to lend Tammy hers.)
• John trying to write his own vows, running them by his grandmother, and fretting because he didn’t like his word choices and he didn’t have one of those word books, you know, a “clitoris” (his words, not mine).

Sad? To a degree, I suppose.

Stereotypical? Undoubtedly.

Funny? Oh my god. See it. See if you don’t laugh. I dare you.

BTW, the title of this entry comes from Gail and John’s wedding where, instead of releasing doves, they threw chickens into the air…

Gail and John (the bride and groom), getting ready for a spin on the mechanical bull.

The shotgun-shell centerpiece.

You really can’t make this stuff up…